


Parole

by River_of_Dreams



Series: He Will Judge [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Castiel actually might be there too, Gen, Not my usual happy-end, Unreliable Narrator, but I promise hope, post-season 9, probably can't call this fix-it, serious self-esteem issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:40:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28913235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/River_of_Dreams/pseuds/River_of_Dreams
Summary: Fully restored, Gadreel undertakes his new task with single-minded devotion.Sometimes, though, it is necessary to go above and beyond duty to truly fulfill it.This is a direct continuation of The Judgment.
Relationships: Gadreel & Kevin Tran, Gadreel & Linda Tran
Series: He Will Judge [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2120562
Comments: 4
Kudos: 2





	Parole

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Glacier_Osric_Dechart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glacier_Osric_Dechart/gifts).



> A word of warning here: I hate that Gadreel on the show died pretty much in the middle of a panic attack and with very low self-esteem. And yet, this happened. Some people do walk in circles before they find their escape velocity.  
> This is not a happy or fluffy fic, though the beginning may seem that way.  
> I couldn't bring myself to leave the ending without hope... but I almost did.

Linda Tran is not, currently, in danger, as far as Gadreel’s senses tell him. It lets him… indulge. The air tastes stale compared to the Paradise he remembers. Polluted. He clears it. At first he thinks to only push the pollution away, but that wouldn’t be fair to people, animals and plants around. So he builds a sphere around himself, invisible, intangible but not letting any more taint in. It is a little bigger than what encompasses Linda’s house and the garden. He could tell himself it’s because spheres are easier, most natural, but he doesn’t feel the need to lie to himself. Not here, not now. The sphere is big because he can make it that way. Because nothing hurts and he can’t spread the wall of his wings here in the open, so this is his way of reaching out, expressing joy. He sifts through the molecules around him and gathers all the ones he doesn’t want there in his palms, locking them in as if holding a tiny spider.

Nobody notices the glow in his hands when he rearranges particles. Clean water pours out of his hands when he’s done. A little bit of ozone wafts around and that’s also nice. Air does tend to carry more ozone after storms and around angels. It feels like being home.

He then buries his fingers in the ground where he stands and does the same with the soil and the plants, this time just within the walls of the garden but nice and deep, down to the bedrock

The garden is teeming with life. Plants, birds, rodents, spiders and insects, parasites. He leaves them all be. A young peach tree in the corner is infected with something, dying. He doesn’t even bother to walk over to it as he pushes the infection back until the weakened tree can keep it in check. Viruses are fascinating, miracles in their own right, straddling the line between alive and not, but he likes them better when they aren’t out of control.

“What are you and what are you doing here?“

He whirls around.

Linda Tran stands in the open door, a storm in the form of one small weary woman, and Gadreel’s stomach clenches in an entirely human fashion.

Right. He’s been putting off thinking about facing her, just keeping enough of his senses on her to know she was safe. Nothing could get the drop on her while he guarded her that way, he was certain.

He failed to realize it would allow her to get a drop on him.

The walls around are taller than usual, with barbed wire on top. He definitely can’t claim he’s wandered in by mistake.

In all honesty, he’s tired of coming up with lies. They have served him terribly anyway.

“I’m an angel.“

“Nonsense,“ she scoffs. “Try again.“

He blinks.

“Surely you do believe in angels.“

“Enough to be warded against them. Try again.“

Oh. So that was why he was sent straight in. And that was, he belatedly realized, why the walls seemed higher to his angelic senses than to his vessel’s. The Winchesters have learned more since he first encountered Dean, or maybe Sam was better at it, or maybe this was somehow Kevin Tran’s work, but while he could spot the wards now that he focused on them, they didn’t weaken him while he stood in. They just kept angels out.

It was going to cause him trouble once Linda leaves her house.

Of course, it has already gotten him in trouble. He wouldn’t be able to come up with a convincing enough lie right now even if he wanted to.

“I was sent here directly. I didn’t have to pass the wards.“

Linda Tran makes a step back and slightly to the side. One of her arms is now hidden behind the door jamb.

“You can’t fly in, either.“

“I didn’t fly in. I appeared here directly.“

Perhaps he was even rebuilt right here. What a thought.

“How?“

He opens his palms. Closes them. There is no way for him to make her trust him without reminding her of her loss.

“By the wish of your son.“

The lines around her eyes and mouth deepen. She doesn’t say anything for a very long time. He gives her as much peace as he can, standing motionless and silent until she decides to address him again. Even that small bit of patience doesn’t come as easy as it once would. There’s some kind of tension buzzing under his skin and he doesn’t know if it comes from having a vessel, from his experiences, or something else.

Eventually there’s a scrape of metal on wood and she loosely points an angel blade on him.

“Prove you are what you say you are.”

Her meaning is unmistakable. He stares at the blade.

Upon which he comes to the most unwelcome realization that he doesn’t want to do what she challenged him to. He’s had too many blades pointed at him through his existence, over and over again. He’s not afraid, not in the true sense of the word. But the thought of more pain, however slight, makes him sick.

He casts about for a different way to prove himself. Doesn’t find one he could use without alerting everything in at least ten mile radius to his presence. Or without having her trust already. Or without significantly greater risk to himself.

Trying not to think about it too much, he manifests his own weapon, draws it across his palm, shows her the grace glowing in the wound. Lets his blade dissipate back into his being as fast as he can.

If anything, it makes her clutch the sword tighter, but she says just, “Hm.“

He waits again as she battles the pain he caused her. Finally, her expression twists.

“If you knew my son, you’d know an angel is the last thing he’d want anywhere near me.“

“I know, and I’m sorry.“ The words taste like sand, barren and too full of memories for comfort. “You are wrong, though. The last thing he wants anywhere near you is danger. He doesn’t have infinite power. He could have left you without a protector, or he could have sent me. He chose me.“

“And what makes you so special that he could send you?“

Gadreel doesn’t hesitate long.

“I have a debt. It was decided.“ The addition “by God” catches in his throat; she knows enough to have too many questions about that.

“You don’t sound very trustworthy.“

“I’m not. But I will protect you. And should the world come to an end, I will still stand by you, protecting you till there’s grace or breath left in me. I promised.“

“And if I don’t want you anywhere near me?“

He doesn’t quite dare to smile at her.

“I’ll stand a little further away.“

Anger flashes in her eyes, but it is short-lived. Her shoulders sag. She doesn’t set aside the blade but she lets it fall to her side.

“What should I call you?“

It’s a mercy she didn’t ask for his name directly. That is the one truth he can’t give her if he wants to be able to guard her.

“Yadon.“

“Fine, Yadon. Come in.“

Different people handle grief differently. Linda Tran’s house is meticulously, severely clean, but there isn’t much in the cupboards in the kitchen. That’s a pity. He can’t cook to entice her to eat with delicious meals, never figured out what humans consider delicious, and his vessel is a bartender, not a cook.

Visible mementos of Kevin Tran are few but prominently displayed; the whole place feels like a shrine, not a home. Part of it may be all the wards, but not all of it.

“Stay here,“ she commands him and vanishes into a bedroom.

Whether she knows or cares that he can hear her despite the closed door between them he doesn’t know, but shortly after the air becomes charged with the presence of a ghost.

It’s not as cold as it could be.

“I got your angel,“ Linda Tran opens, straight to the point.

The ghost doesn’t respond immediately, but still fairly quickly.

“Okay.“

“So you did send him.“

“Yes.“

“Can I trust him?“

There’s a long, long silence. Obviously, Kevin Tran doesn’t like lying to his Mom any more than Gadreel does.

“He’s my best shot at protecting you, Mom. I didn’t really have many options.“

“You didn’t have to send anybody.“

“Mom…”

“I have my wards. The tattoo. The sword. I know what to look for.“

“I don’t want you to look over your shoulder for the rest of your life. I don’t want that life for you.“

Gadreel bows his head. He wishes he knew more about Kevin Tran’s wisdom and love for his mother while the Prophet was still alive. He was so close to refusing Metatron’s offer. Any little thing could have been the tipping point. Anything but knowing the young man is dangerous to Metatron’s cause and hates being as good as imprisoned in the Bunker.

Linda Tran doesn’t seem to find the words for a reply until Kevin’s time runs out. Being the gate for God’s mercy might have tilted him further away from becoming vengeful, but it didn’t make him stronger.

“I have to go. Take care, Mom.“

Linda Tran whispers something back, too quiet for Gadreel to hear.

The ghost’s presence dissipates.

After a little while, Linda Tran comes out, strict and collected. Gadreel doesn’t comment on her red-rimmed eyes. He doesn’t comment on anything, waiting for her to address him or not.

She eyes him as he stands in the middle of the room, exactly where she left him.

“I don’t know how you two imagine this will work. I can’t take you to work with me.“

He nearly smiles in relief at the implicint acceptance, grudging as it is.

“I will make it possible,” he promises. “Until then, I can guard you from further away, as I said, as long as you allow me to adjust the wards to accept me.“

It strikes him: Fully restored as he is, he might be the most powerful free angel in existence right now.

The second thought is much less welcome: He can’t let anybody know he’s alive. Even Castiel’s acceptance is dubious now that Metatron supposedly fell and Gadreel is bound to a single task, useless for any other purpose. All others, all his siblings in Heaven and on Earth and both Winchesters, he must presume to want him dead, if only to be on the safe side.

Linda Tran measures him the whole time he is lost in thought, then stares him down when he meets her gaze. There’s any number of uncomfortable questions she could ask him. He does his best to pretend he has nothing to hide.

Finally she scoffs a little at the display.

“Do you need anything? Food, drink?“ She already aims for the kitchen nook as she says this.

“No. I don’t need to eat, or drink, or sleep,“ he answers earnestly, happy at least this makes him little trouble to her.

She slows down, glances over her shoulder.

“Is there anything you want?“

Her tone is strange. This time, he averts his gaze.

For my sins to be undone, he doesn’t say. Then he finds something he can tell her after all.

“To do this one thing right.“

She turns away from him without comment. Makes herself tea, every movement well practised and decisive.

After a short consideration, she pulls out a second cup.

She never asks him to leave.

She could have; he’d made it very clear that he could guard her from afar. That is what he ends up doing while she’s at work. He considered a job that would allow him to get closer, like a janitor or a receptionist, but she warned him these were agency jobs. Even if he got hired by the agency, getting a job in her particular building would have been difficult.

Mundane options taken from him, he perches on the rooftop of her office building every day, invisible to every eye, living or mechanical, and waits for her to go home. Once a week at night, when she assures him she will stay in her house, he slips into her office and makes sure the wards he’s etched under glued-on carpets and under the paint on the walls everywhere she might even think of going are robust and intact.

They took some tweaking at the beginning; one of the IT guys is a werewolf with a passion for hunting deer and monsters, not humans, and after careful consideration that left the poor creature whining in fear, Gadreel apologized to him and made sure he didn’t have to leave his job.

He wasn’t too surprised when the werewolf kept coming instead of getting as far away from the angel on his tail as possible. There is a kind of safety in having something infinitely more powerful making sure one doesn’t stray from the righteous path.

Other than that, Gadreel stays at Linda Tran’s side. He goes out of his way to be unobtrusive and she’s learned to ignore him for the most part, a quiet coexistence he prefers.

Kevin Tran comes to him sometimes in the early hours before dawn, considerably colder than when he visits his mother. His eyes have the unforgiving gravity of black holes as he stares Gadreel down, but he never says anything. He doesn’t speak, he doesn’t take back his decision and eventually, he stops unnerving Gadreel. After that, Gadreel just inclines his head in a polite greeting and weathers the gaze until the ghost decides to vanish.

Linda tells him her plans for the day every morning, letting him prepare for any aberrations, and that’s the extent of their communication on most days.

She is still a living human soul with all its needs, though, and sometimes her iron self-control slips. On those evenings she serves him tea, tasting of growth and fire that transforms, and talks at him just to hear a voice.

He talks back, protecting her from loneliness with the usual determination but much less success. With his words, he paints pictures of untouched wilderness before the Fall, of the wonder of the first living cells, of stars and the music that connects them all.

He yearns to reach out, then, but the Host remains silent. There’s no distant hum of unending communication. It fell apart when the Host became multiple competing factions and it never came back.

She never asks him about the debt he proclaimed that first day. When she feels the need to prompt him, which he tries to stave off, she asks for details of what he already talked about. She is also curious about angelic nature, especially perception, as if studying him as an alien species allowed her to pretend the conversation was useful rather than an indulgence because she has learned something.

Some of these nights he sits next to her and describes everything he senses in so much detail that the sunrise catches them before she finds the will to face sleep.

None of it is going to be enough.

The realization comes in the course of months as he watches her settle into her mourning. The loss of a child is cruel to any parent, but she has lost everything and everyone. She has no other children, no siblings, and her relationship with her parents is distant and formal. He witnessed the fading of her two close friendships in that time; apparently they used to be deep but now she can’t even tell the truth about Kevin, who is officially missing still. She hates her job, the best she could get after vanishing herself for months without a good excuse.

It makes Gadreel think about his own vessel, but the man had been just as lonely and unfulfilled.

People strong in different ways would find something to give their life a new meaning, but not steel-willed, unbending Linda Tran. She had devoted her whole adult life to Kevin, to raising him, to enabling his success. He was her entire hope for the future. Now that he’s gone, she stays just as single-mindedly focused on his loss.

She survives because she is too proud not to, but that’s the best he can say about her existence.

He tries. By God, he tries. He even crosses his boundaries a few times, encourages her to go out more, pick up painting, anything. The answer is about the same every time: “Don’t.“

It makes the restlessness under his skin worse.

He begs a few coins off strangers one day, buys seeds, grows vegetables for her in her garden. It makes him feel marginally useful in the seeming absence of any outward threat. He’s pleased when the peach tree in the corner starts to bear fruit again.

Linda eats without protest but without enthusiasm. He asks her to join him in the garden. She looks at him with a mix of pity and weary resignation.

“I’m not the nurturing type, Yadon.“

He doesn’t open the topic again, but an idea he has rejected several times in the past takes deeper root in his thoughts.

It is clandestine, this effort of his. If he was certain of his success, he would be able to get Linda Tran’s full cooperation, that much he’s sure about. But he is not, so he can’t tell her.

He has theoretical access to some of the things that could help him. Linda’s blood, her husband’s ring, Kevin’s ghost, a few mementos to capture more of his essence. Even Gadreel himself is a link; there’s a kind of recognition involved in a smiting, taking the measure of a man, even if every human being has enough shadows to be found unworthy of life.

There are things he doesn’t have, though. Kevin Tran’s body, for one. It would be easy if he did, a matter of simple restoration, but he knows without asking that the Winchesters have burned the body. It was hunters’ tradition. It was too much to hope they would break it.

The other thing he doesn’t have is knowledge. He is a guardian of life, not a creator of it; that is the domain of God himself and maybe His archangels.

He’s learned something from Sam Winchester, though: Never give up against impossible odds.

He’s learned something from his own failures, too: The easy way is seldom the right one.

He builds the body in the bedrock beneath Linda Tran’s garden from fresh blood, fertile soil and old memories. Linda Tran doesn’t know he broke his word and entered her bedroom without her life being in immediate danger, about the blood he took from her or the ring he borrowed for an hour. He suspects not even Kevin Tran knows.

He ponders briefly the dishonesty and whether wrong means towards good intentions always have to end badly, but this is the best he can give.

The body rests, lifeless, untouched by time, while he wonders how to get the missing ingredient. He doesn’t even know where to start.

The ghost still visits him sometimes, but it happens less and less often. Kevin Tran has chosen love over revenge once and his decision stands; eventually his hatred and wariness get worn down and become bitter and musty like stale tea.

Gadreel plans to address him one of these days, seeing the former Prophet is the only source of information he can think of, but he never finds the right words until Kevin does.

“Do you think Mom would get better if I…“

Gadreel straightens, caught by surprise.

The ghost’s mouth twists.

“I don’t know how to pass. I don’t think I can until she’s… I don’t think she will ever let me.“

Gadreel nods, lightly.

Kevin waits, then sneers.

“You are kind of useless at this, aren’t you?“

Gadreel looks into those blackhole eyes.

“I need your help.“

The ghost flickers weakly, light years removed from the hateful presence that had once filled his broken cell to suffocation.

“My help with… what? Making Mom let go? I tried, I-“

“You didn’t,“ Gadreel interrupts. “You want her to be happy. You don’t want her to let go.“

The room gets colder even as something in the ghost gets hotter, embers of a forest fire fanned to life.

“Anyway. Isn’t this one of the things angels are supposed to be for? Helping people pass whether they want to or not?“

It was a solution. The natural order of things. Kevin Tran, at peace in Heaven. Linda Tran, waiting to die so she could join him. The humble thing to do, the angelic thing to do, was to accept this.

Gadreel has never been good enough at being humble, or obedient without second thought. An ultimate flaw in an angel, one that his enemies had used against him more than once.

Gadreel leans forward.

“You had the Angel tablet once. Do you remember anything about resurrections?“

Kevin’s eyes go wide. He opens his mouth.

Vanishes, too exhausted to hold form in his shock.

“There is a way for angels to resurrect each other.“

Kevin Tran can never take Gadreel by surprise by simply appearing: the air becomes charged and cold long before he materializes enough to speak or otherwise act. It is therefore the words alone that make Gadreel stare at him, frozen.

The lines in Kevin’s face are sharp as he finishes.

“As long as they are being led by at least one archangel. And a couple of other conditions have to be met, which won’t happen in this century.“

Gadreel sags, for once uncaring that the ghost will see his moment of weakness.

“Is that what you were after?“

Kevin Tran is angry, disdainful, and it makes Gadreel bury the remains of that unexpected hope and meet his dark gaze as levelly as he’s able.

“No. I wanted to know if there’s anything that could help me resurrect you.“

The Prophet stares him down, but for once, Gadreel has nothing to hide.

The ghost vanishes again.

Shortly after that conversation, contrary to all expectations, the Winchesters do visit.

Gadreel finds that out the worst possible way, ready behind Linda’s shoulder as she opens the door. He nearly manifests his blade as he suddenly stands face to face with Sam, with Dean barely half a step behind.

Sam’s gaze glides right over him as he glances inside.

“Hello, Ms. Tran.“

Gadreel is very grateful to Linda Tran at that moment for insisting he doesn’t let anybody know he’s there. He got used to making himself invisible whenever she had any visitors, be it the mailman, the occassional Jehovah’s Witness, or, like now, a pair of hunters. He’s almost amazed it works on them, too; he’s learned to expect the impossible from them, but he’s had months to perfect the skill.

“Hello,“ Linda Tran says curtly. “Well?“

“We have the notes,“ Dean assures her as if it was a continuation of a conversation Gadreel has missed – a conversation that couldn’t, then, have happened in this house.

“We would like to meet the angel,“ Sam says, ever polite. “Make sure you’re safe. Where is he?“

“He’s around,“ Linda replies. “Making sure I’m safe, as you say, for almost a year by now.“

Sam has the grace to look ashamed at that. Dean as well, but he’s better at pushing through it.

“Is there anywhere we can talk?“

“There’s nothing to talk about.“

Sam’s gaze is full of worry.

“Ms. Tran, Cas says that he isn’t aware of any angel assigned to protecting you, or Kevin getting any special treatment. The whole story doesn’t make sense. Please, let us talk to this angel.“

Linda Tran hesitates. Hesitates for a very long time, but then she steps aside, letting both Winchesters in.

It is ironic, Gadreel thinks, to be caught for a truth more easily than he ever was for a lie.

“Kevin confirmed his story,“ she says. The Winchesters exchange a glance.

“Can we meet him?“ Sam requests again.

It’s over. Gadreel doesn’t see how it could be anything other than over. If the Winchesters don’t try to kill him the moment they see him, Linda Tran will the moment they say his name.

He was so close. There’s a body deep under the surface of the garden, Kevin might have been able to tell him how to proceed, maybe that’s even what those notes are for, but Linda sighs.

“Yadon. Please show yourself.“

Gadreel flees.

He’s a coward.

He is a coward, just like Kevin Tran said.

He’s left his charge, left his post, broken his promise. Again. All it took was the first sign of trouble.

He’s nothing.

He was flawed before, but his imprisonment broke him. Thaddeus broke him. He is no longer able to stand straight. He is no longer able to face danger. To take a risk. To weather others’ anger and hatred, no matter how well deserved. He lives in illusions, always striving to feel like he was doing something good, but whenever it proves too hard, he escapes.

He is too far right now to intercede if anything happens to Linda Tran.

All his power, his restored might is for nothing. His grace is fully healed, but his spirit is still worthless. Not even God’s mercy can mend it for him.

At least the Winchesters will protect Linda Tran. For a little while. Just until something they deem more important comes up, because Kevin Tran was right: they won’t stay.

They won’t stay and she’ll never let him protect her now, even if he crawls back.

He’s ruined everything. Linda will be left without a protector. He’ll never be able to get Kevin back without his cooperation. Kevin Tran will realize he shouldn’t have chosen mercy, he will get furious, turn vengeful, giving either Gadreel or the Winchesters no other choice but to destroy him. The last Prophet will be gone as thoroughly as a human being can be and with that, his mother will be destroyed as well. And it will all be Gadreel’s fault, all of it, again.

Linda Tran’s prayer comes like the sting of a whip.

“Gadreel. We know it’s you. Come back here. Now.“

He doesn’t really know what brings him back. Refuses to look at it too closely, because it certainly isn’t courage. If he ever had one, he has none of it left.

He crosses the street, walks up the driveway, knocks on the door. Hears the shuffle inside and, when the door opens, is utterly unsurprised to find the Colt aimed between his eyes and an angel sword in Dean’s hand.

It’s easier to stare down the Colt than Sam Winchester.

Nothing happens.

“Come in,“ Dean commands. Inviting him into whatever trap they prepared for him. He can’t see Linda over the hunters.

He looks Dean in the eye.

“I was trying to bring Kevin Tran back. He knows. I asked for his help.“

The hunters both freeze, but that’s not really important.

Something pushes them aside and that is important, that is Linda, haggard and furious and pale, and Gadreel’s heart jolts, the first sign of life since he ran away. Not hope. Pain. For her.

“Say again?“

“I did not want to give you false hope-“

Sam unfreezes.

“Inside. Now.“

They usher him in and sit him down on the sofa. He’s shocked to find there’s no holy oil, no sigils to trap him, at least none immediately used. Only his name that he wrote into Linda’s wards to grant him access, one that he foolishly taught her to recognize, is struck through in all instances except one.

He’s guessing there’s a banishment sigil somewhere nearby, after which the last iteration of his name would be broken to keep him out.

Better than he deserves, certainly.

Hunched over, he tells them the whole story in the fewest words he can find.

“Why should we trust a word you say?“ Dean challenges eventually.

Gadreel shrugs.

“Ask Kevin.“

There is a short and fruitless discussion about this due to the Winchesters’ fear it’s some kind of trap or ploy from him.

Gadreel watches his hands, lets the words flow. This time he’s done worse than the wildest accusations. They can’t hurt him anymore.

He doesn’t hear Linda move to the bedroom where she keeps the ring, but he knows she’s lost her patience when the air turns to ice.

He doesn’t have the will to look up. Nobody else finds their voice, either, before the ghost of Kevin Tran does.

“He screwed up again, didn’t he.“

“You know about him?“ Dean demands, dismayed.

Kevin sighs.

“Yeah.“

“Kevin,“ Sam starts carefully. “You know this is Gadreel, right?“

There’s no sigh this time. Nothing. Silence. There’s nothing that forces Kevin to tell the truth, anger his mother. He can easily renounce him, let him take the fall alone.

“Yes, I know it is Gadreel. What did he do this time?“

“Kevin.“

Gadreel cringes at Linda’s tone. Maybe the ghost does, too.

“Sorry, Mom. I didn’t really get to pick. I could send him or nobody.“

“You left your mom with Gadreel?!“

It is as he remembers. Dean’s vehemence. Sam’s silence.

“Well I could hardly have left her with you. You couldn’t even protect me right under your noses! How many times did you stop by since I died? Or called?“

“I didn’t want them to,“ Linda says.

Almost at the same time, Sam decides to speak.

“Okay, but Gadreel? Really?“

“Gadreel, really. Looks like I’m cursed with self-sacrificing idiots even after my death. I didn’t ask to decide what to do with him. I was just… told I can.“

Sam picks his way forward like a blind man walking over rubble.

“I’m not saying you should have finished him off if you had the chance but, how did you trust him so much?“

“I didn’t. I just got used to the world almost ending every other Friday. I thought he’s the lesser risk.“

There are so many things Linda Tran could ask. Instead, she gathers herself with her usual iron will.

“All that is not important right now. He said he tried to bring you back. Is that why you needed your notes?“

Gadreel looks up. Everybody watches Kevin, so it is easier.

“Yeah. There was a lot of stuff in the angel tablet I wasn’t interested in, so I just jotted it down to get past it to whatever I needed to know. Metaphysical, philosophical stuff. Like how angels relate to life.“

Gadreel gathers what passes for courage in him.

“May I read alongside you?“

Kevin grimaces.

“Not really. Can’t stay here for long enough and besides, I didn’t understand it even when I wrote it down.“

Disbelieving, Gadreel straightens a little even before Kevin finishes.

“I thought you would read them instead of me.“

Both hunters raise immediate objections. To thin, warm air, as the ghost conveniently loses form and vanishes.

They do let him read the notes, eventually. He’s not alone for a second and he must read aloud, but that is about as far as the Winchesters and Linda Tran let their distrust hinder him. He’s presented them with too valuable bait. They don’t even discuss anything else with him. Not Castiel’s expectations, not their anger, not the sense of betrayal Linda Tran must feel.

He yearns for her tea. Even more than that, he yearns for her quiet companionship, even though it’s more than clear it never truly belonged to him.

The notes make very little sense at the first pass.

At the second, something begins to stir in his mind. He sets aside everything that doesn’t wake that feeling and reads again, jumping between pages, by now familiar with them enough to recognize each at a glance.

_Angels are ideas??? The beginning_

Gadreel stops reading, long fingers blocking out Kevin’s next three question marks.

Of course even a Prophet had to trip translating words with so many subtle meanings into a human language but Gadreel, suddenly, understands the meaning he needs. The parallel between an angel’s creation from a single word that transform nothingness into the core of a being, and the spark that transforms organic matter into life.

“What-“ Dean starts, but Sam and Linda both hush him.

Gadreel stares at another sheet where a section about the nature of angelic grace deteriorates into gibberish three sentences down.

It is not what God needed Kevin Tran to know at the time.

Or maybe it’s just not what Kevin thought he needed to know at the time.

An angel cannot create life. But, unlike humanity, each angel is the first of their line, the being who carries in them that moment of turning nothing into a life. The word. The idea. The spark.

Gadreel bows his head, rests his forehead on his steepled hands.

“I suppose I should ask. Is there anything left of Kevin Tran’s body?“

“No,“ Sam says immediately.

Gadreel sighs, even though he never had much hope, and glances at the pages again. Of course there’s nothing about sharing that spark, but he already knows what is Kevin’s only chance.

“Does a lock of hair count?“

Gadreel looks up.

He doesn’t really know.

“May I see it?“

The lock doesn’t help with Gadreel’s main concern, but it does allow him to make the empty vessel more Kevin and less likely to break down due to some detail Gadreel overlooked.

Maybe he should be grateful for that, and he is – he is as grateful for it as he is grateful for the months of stolen peace and companionship Kevin unknowingly gifted him. It means that if his idea works, it will be good for something.

Hopefully.

He brings the body up, now only a thin layer of soil between it and the air. A shallow grave, a risk for everybody involved should his plan fail, but the Winchesters are hunters. They can dispose of this body just as well as the last.

His mind has cleared.

This isn’t a mindless run away from imprisonment without ever going through all the options. It isn’t panic and it isn’t grasping at the last chance to see himself as noble.

He knows he isn’t noble. He just has a debt. He’s had months to live as someone else, someone almost welcome. It was meant to be a solemn task but it was a respite, a chance to appreciate his renewed health and sense of purpose.

It’s time to accept responsibility and give back, simple as that. He’s never accepted responsibility for his first failure, laying it firmly at Lucifer’s feet. But Kevin’s death is his to bear, and so is his second desertion, even if this time the latter was without consequences other than the shattering of his false self-image.

“Tell Kevin I’m going to need him here,“ he says softly.

“What are you going to do?“ Sam asks.

Gadreel closes and opens his fist in uncertainty. As much as his mind might be clear, there’s now more of that insistence under his skin, that restlessness that marked most of his stay in this house.

The air turns icy with Kevin Tran’s arrival. Good. The explanation belongs to him more than to anybody else.

“It’s not possible for a human being to make a dead body alive by sharing or gifting their own life, because you are as much body as a soul and your body has never been dead, coming from two living cells. But everything alive about an angel was created at a single point in time – one that I can remember. One that I can capture. I think I might be able to share it. I have a body for Kevin and I have his soul. All he needs is that spark of becoming alive.“

“Sounds like a long shot,“ Dean comments.

“It is, but it is the only chance I can think of. Resurrecting a body is a simple task of reverting its time, but this one I’ve built has never been alive. The life must come from elsewhere. Only our Father can create one from nothing.“

“And if it doesn’t work?“

Sam’s concern entirely belongs to Kevin and maybe Linda, of course, but it is nice all the same.

“You will be no worse off.“

He’s not going to tell them that one of the possible outcomes is a live body the soul refuses to recognize as its own. He expects to have enough control to kill it again if it comes to that, and if not, Kevin’s ghost will be around to alert the hunters to the fact.

Gadreel gestures and the body’s face comes all the way up, cleared of dirt. He doesn’t want its first breath to be the last.

“I don’t know how long this will take. If my vessel wakes up in the meantime, please take care of him. He’s a good man.“

He kneels. Reaches out.

“Wait.“

Gadreel stills. There’s a brief flutter of panic: if Kevin has changed his mind, he can’t clear his debt, or protect Linda.

“What kind of bullshit is that? Everything angels do is pretty much instantaneous from human point of view.“

“This isn’t something you’ve ever seen an angel do. I’m not sure any of us ever tried.“

“So? Why should your vessel wake up? Are you going to possess me or what?“

“Of course not. If we could create empty vessels for ourselves and use them without consent, many more of my brothers would have done so.“

It’s Dean who betrays him, of course it is.

“You don’t expect to come out of it alive, do you.“

They all stare at him as if his life actually mattered to them, and that- That’s an unexpected blessing he’ll gladly carry with him into his attempt, but first they have to let him attempt it.

He shrugs, the gesture exaggerated to his own sense of self but probably understated to the people around him, and curves up his mouth.

“Do you really think a single human life is equal to an angel of my rank? You can’t even comprehend young Castiel. Do not mistake my humility for sameness. I am beyond your wildest imagination.“

The temperature drops dangerously low, but Dean is not impressed.

“Yeah, yeah, and the last time you were bullshitting your way to suicide, I didn’t fall for it either. Out with it. What are your chances?“

Gadreel doesn’t let himself sag, but he does bow his head for a moment.

“I don’t know. I assure you, I do not want to die. I think it is more likely that I will fail than that I will die in the effort, but the risk does exist. It doesn’t matter. I have a debt to all of you, one that normally can’t be repaid. Let me try.“

Silence stretches. They hesitate. Miraculously, they hesitate.

They are good people. Neither of them wants to be the one to send him to his possible death, even if it’s his life in the balance against Kevin’s. Waiting for them to make that inevitable decision is more than unkind.

He reaches again and this time, nobody stops him.

Nobody stops him but at the last moment before he leaves his vessel and its mortal senses behind, he hears Dean.

“Damn, Cas, need you here, NOW. Give me a sharpie-“

A body is a world of its own. Myriad of cells, galaxies of atoms.

It is strange to be in one he can’t possess. Oh, he can make it move: fire up the neurons, flood the system with hormones, make the mitochondria produce energy. Make the heart beat and the lungs take in air.

It takes all of his awareness but he can do it, cell by cell.

It is not truly life and the ghost of Kevin Tran makes no sign of moving in.

Carefully so as not to damage the body he lets it become dormant again.

He pulls his attention inward. In and back. Through guarding Linda Tran, both broken and unbreakable. Through the bloodbath of his service to Metatron. Through killing Kevin Tran. Through his misguided effort to help the Winchesters. Through the Fall. The torture. The loneliness. The horror of failing humanity. The pride of guarding Eden. Being tasked with it. Being amazed and humbed by Creation. Protecting it. Fighting the Leviathan. Being one with the Host.

There. There it is, the split second after he _became_. Just one more step. He reaches in-

And there is God.

Gadreel’s concentration shatters.

It was a memory. It was just a memory, but it burns at the center of his grace like a miniature sun.

He had once been One with everything. The Universe. The potential of all Creation. The idea of all his younger siblings, nestled not too deep in God’s mind.

A word, an intent behind it, and he _was_.

There is not a way to share just a bit of it – what part of the whole of his existence from the moment of his creation to the moment he will cease to exist should he cleave off? By all rights, it shouldn’t work at all, but the sun at his center burns and the restlessness under his skin has changed into something like elation. Agitated and pricking along his folded wings, but unmistakably excited.

He can still try.

The connection is open and even if it’s just a memory, it’s almost too much light even for him.

Power. Presence.

This was his purpose all along, the reason behind the extent of God’s mercy enabled by Kevin’s decision. It was never for Gadreel’s sake. It was for Kevin’s. Gadreel is a hopelessly damaged person, but he can yet become a workable channel if he allows it.

There is no space for regret as Gadreel casts away his tainted self and begs the Father of his memory to use all of him at will to make Kevin Tran come alive again.  


***

The man who comes to watch him sometimes is vaguely familiar.

It is the kind of familiar that makes him turn up, smile, and not mind at all if the man stays while he returns to his joy.

The peach seedling flutters in the breeze. The soil is rich, rain and sunlight come in perfect turns, but the wind is too strong sometimes; his seedling still needs as much protection as when he coaxed it from its stone. He gives it gladly.

One day it will be a beautiful, strong tree bearing fruit of its own.

Perhaps, when that time comes, he will remember his name. His visitor’s name.

Like the tree grows every day, so does he gain strength and clarity of mind.

When his tree bears fruit, he will say his goodbyes.

Then he will walk out and find something else worth protecting, because that is who he is.

**Author's Note:**

> One of these days, I will perhaps tell everybody here how I found the name Yadon, and what I found besides, and why a peach tree, and what that ending is supposed to mean.  
> Maybe later in the comments.  
> As always, feedback of any kind will be treasured.


End file.
